[Tutor] General Programming Question

[alan.gauld@bt.com]

> On Thu, 28 Jun 2001 alan.gauld@bt.com wrote:
> 
> > Recursion is all - other loop constructs are not mentioned.

So that message did go out - it dissappeared while I was typing, 
presumably I found the hot key for Send...

> Recursion doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, 

Its not about expense per se its about flexibility of program 
construction. There are many different loop constructs, some of 
which can be replicated using recursion(while, for, etc) but others 
are much harder(*) - and very much more obscure when done via 
recursion.

Other things that spring to minfd as "nails" are data structures 
where in the "Structure" book everything has to be reduced to 
pairs because thats the only data structure we have!

OTOH the books coverage of OO vv stream based programming is 
very good and the obligatory Lisp example of implementing the 
Lisp engine in Lisp is better explained than in many other texts.

I just think it tends to take a very singular view of programming.

Alan g.

(*) Of course some of the harder ones should perhaps be 
discouraged anyway...multi exit paths and multi decision 
points for example.